Good Moleman. You took 4 minutes of my life and I want them back! It’s Friday, August 2nd, Two Thousand and Nineteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 88˚ & Pantone 11-4001 and somewhere, somebody finally remembered their umbrella. It took countless wet mornings and even more double takes, but they finally did it. Did they remember to turn the lights off? No. Did they feed the dog? Probably not. Are they even going to get to work on time? Not likely. But damnit, they will be dry! However, they won’t be dry because they were conscientious enough to remember proper gear. No. They will be dry because it isn’t even raining. But at least they’re protected from the sun’s ultra-violent rays. Yes, I’m aware I spelled ultraviolet wrong. It works both ways. I also have some things on my mind.

– If there’s anything you know about me, Mom, it’s that I love beverages. It’s one of the few reasons that I strive to be the person I am. I have always aspired to be a beverage consumer and I’m the type of man that follows his dreams. But given that I’m 3 months sober, my beverage selection has been slashed considerably. So whenever a new bev comes along, I have to take notice. In the spirit of my famed Free Wine Blog, my Free Bev Blog of the week is GURU Organic Energy Lite, because that name makes sense and every word in it is totally necessary!
I am quite confident that the name of this energy drink came from a think tank session that lasted only 4-6 weeks. First they had to find a word that best represented something their target demographic was looking for. They’re young, healthy, professional, yoga doing, shit, that’s it! That yoga thing, like the guy, you know, that fucking yoga guy with the beard, he’s uhh…he’s a guru! GURU! That’s the first word! But in all caps! What does it stand for? How about Good Use of Refreshing…You! Take that, ya nerds! What else? Umm. It’s organic, so that must be in the name. And there’s energy…and it’s lite…there has to be a way to put all of those words together and make it catchy. And so we have GURU Organic Energy Lite, the latest 10 calorie craze to come out of San Francisco. Their can goes on to state that:

We believe there’s a smarter way to provide you with good energy to fulfill your greatest dreams and aspirations. Crafting GURU with natural organics is how we do it.

In other words, this drink was designed by a spambot, for spambots, with all of the proceeds going to spambots. Well, joke’s on them, I didn’t pay for this. Also, my dreams and aspirations are to drink bevs, so I’m an easy win for them. The can opened easily with a satisfying hiss, so all systems are go for bevving. Let’s make my dreams come true! With organic ingredients!

Mouth-Feels

Upon first smells, I thought I was still writing the Free Wine Blog. There’s a pungent aroma of frost-bitten frozen berries that have been sitting in the back of your parents freezer for 3 years because one day they thought it’d be cool to make a parfait. Upon first sip, oh dear God no. The berry taste only lasts for about .42 seconds and then goes straight to the chemical afterburn. It’s like a really shitty gum or a really effective cough syrup. The second sip wasn’t a sip at all, but rather a bracing gulp because I have 11 more ounces of this guarana seed juice to slam. It really dulled the burn doing it that way. I also don’t know if my tastebuds are biased because it’s a “lite” drink. Much like my conspiracy theory against Pillsbury, I feel like all diet bevs have added chemicals to make it inherently taste bad. It’s something that I’ve expressed before, but few have actually agreed with me. And this tall drink of cane syrup is diet to the max. The third gulp actually did take like cough syrup and the fourth and fifth were no different. I guess this is what sobriety is all about: continuing to drink beverages that you know are bad for you, but you do it anyway for the sake of artistic research.

Earth-Feels

The moment this bev touched my lips, I was whisked away to the passenger seat of a 1991 Buick Regal. I’m 5 years old and I’m riding home from Saginaw with my Mom. I was most likely complaining about being thirsty, because I always complained about anything. Mom offered me a drink of her warm Diet Coke, her bev of choice. I desperately chugged what was left and realized, to my horror, that it was gross. Not only did it burn all the way down, but it also made me even more thirsty. I asked her why she would put herself through such pain on a regular basis. She shrugged and said it was a fair trade for having zero calories. Dark clouds formed around the car. An even bigger darkness formed inside me. And thus, my war with diet beverages began.

Experience-Feels

10 minutes after chugging this Stevia Piss, I felt no different except for a numbness on tip of my nose. I browsed Instagram for a few minutes, pulled out some beard hairs and went back to writing the sentence before this one. Its lackluster aftertaste made me want to guzzle down a more delicious bev to get the memory pushed out. Considering that my only goal was to drink a bev, GURU Organic Energy Lite did a very poor job at helping me achieve it. But then again, in a way they succeeded. Because now all I want to do is drink better bevs. THOSE SLICK BASTARDS DID IT AGAIN!

– I realize that I’ve been gone a while and I can probably chalk it up to sobriety, but that’s actually not the truth. The truth is, I’ve been really busy. Here’s what I did on every Friday since my last Thoughts:

There. Now you’re totally caught up with everything that’s going on in my life.

– I’m not sure what’s more sad: my terrible diet described in the aforementioned food log or the fact that in order to remember what I ate on those particular days, I had to consult a baseball schedule. Every Friday, if I wasn’t going to a baseball game [I’ve already racked up 22 this season, with at least 7 more to go], I was most likely watching it at home [and that’s not exclusive to Fridays]. The sport has consumed every fiber of my being, for better and worse. And I can’t lie, it’s been really easy to be obsessed this year. My beloved Dodgers have been going on a reign of terror, dominating the league in nearly every category. They have serious candidates for the MVP and Cy Young awards and they also have 3 rookies that have already formed strong footholds in the loaded roster. This is the 2017 Dodgers on steroids, but without the steroids [I hope].

And as their division lead grows, so does Rachel’s hair. After cancer gave her a blank canvas, her hair has been exponentially growing back in for the past month. I can even run my fingers through it without doing it dramatically slow. But there is one problem: we have no idea what her hair color actually is. Decades of dying has rendered it colorless. In some lights, it’s blonde. In others, it’s brown. It’s also red and gray. It’s a huge mess. Much like her hair’s identity crisis, the Dodgers bullpen has no idea what it’s doing. Some days it’s lights out, some days a 5 run lead isn’t enough. Sometimes they even push their starters to go full games instead of rolling the dice. But Wednesday was the day everything would be solved. There was one last opportunity to trade for bullpen help and Rachel was determined to dye her hair. As the 4:00 trade deadline loomed, Rachel’s Overtone came in the mail. And I sat at work, not able to do anything in anticipation of what my future held:

2:18 PM – Overtone comes in the mail. My mind races in excitement.

2:27 PM – Athletics acquire RHP Tanner Roark. Not totally on the Dodgers radar, but still would’ve been useful.

2:29 PM – Rachel can’t find a pair of gloves. I try my best to explain where they are, but I start trying to accept the probable reality that she won’t be dying her hair today.

2:35 PM – The Nationals get RHP Hunter Strickland from the Mariners. He would’ve been nice, but there’s no use trusting a former Giant, especially one with a temper.

3:14 PM – The Dodgers finally make a move! I breathe a sigh of relief. The newest addition to the bullpen is…Jed Gyroko! Who isn’t a pitcher! And is also injured! And washed up! Fantastic! I get to keep using this meme!

3:22 PM – The Overtone has been applied. The deed has been done. The check is in the mail. And now the waiting begins.

3:23 PM – One of the Dodger’s target closers, Shane Greene, gets vultured by the Braves. Because of course he did. Now the only chance of a big gun would be Pirates closer, Felipe Vasquez. And the Dodgers are currently in a stalemate with negotiations. Tick, tick, tick.

3:25 PM – While her hair is drying, Rachel points out the fact that I added an extra D to Jed Gyorko’s name. She has an uncanny ability to correct me without making me feel like a child. I don’t know how she does it.

4:00 PM – The trade deadline is now up. News will still trickle in, but for all intents and purposes, it’s all over. No Vasquez, no Diaz, not even a Hansel Robles. I would even had taken a Drew Pomeranz. But there’s no presents under the tree.

4:16 PM – The preliminary results are in: the dye did nothing.

4:16 PM – As Rachel texted me the bad news, the AL favorite Astros swiped Zack Greinke. The Cy Young winning ex-Dodger rounds out what is now the most terrifying lineup in baseball. With two big death blows, my universe collapsed. I felt like the wind got knocked out of me. How could such an exciting occasion go so wrong?

4:36 PM – The Dodgers got a consolation prize in the form of LOOGY [Lefty One Out Guy], Adam Kolarek. It’s better than nothing, I guess.

4:52 PM – The hair is dry. The color is not pink. Much like the Dodgers, she didn’t gain much. But she also didn’t lose anything.

When I got home that night, I realized that things weren’t as bad as it seemed. Instead of a mashup of shades, Rachel’s hair is one single tone. What that tone is, we have no idea, but it’s consistent. And she still looks beautiful and I still get to marry her. I’m still the luckiest guy in the world. After 8 scoreless innings, Dodgers rookie catcher, Will Smith, hit a 3 run moonshot to win the game. Their bullpen may be full of holes, but this team is still many times better than they were last year. As I read that top prospect Dustin May would be making his pitching debut this weekend, I held Rachel in my arms and thought to myself, “Holy shit. I’m really spoiled.”

– Try this trick over the weekend: Get everything that you could ever want and still find something to complain about. Write a blog about said complaints.

Have a whiny weekend, everyone!

– TeeCoZee

Friday – 2:31 PM – Rachel points out that I once again spelled Jedd Gyroko’s name wrong. It turns out that I had said it with one D and she told me to add another.